Misisi Beer Feast

Misisi Beer Feast

October; Twamo

The ritual harvest feast known as the Misisi takes place in Uganda after the millet harvest each year. The Sebei people make a beer out of the misisi ("grain that is left on the ground") after the millet stalks have been gathered and placed in granaries. Misisi also refers to the cobs of maize that are too small to be worth storing. In addition to beer, the feast includes maize meal, steamed plantains, and a bullock, ram, or chickens.
A special group of close relatives is invited to the feast, and the host's father (or some other elder) pours the beer from a libation gourd or mwendet and offers it to a friend, saying, "Please accept this beer; I am still alive and let us enjoy it together." Libations are poured with the right hand, inside the house or kraal, naming the host's father, brothers, mother, mother's brothers, grandparents, father-in-law, brothers-in-law, and all deceased members of the clan who still have living descendants. Libations are poured for the evil spirits with the left hand, outside the kraal, naming deceased relatives who are jealous because they never had children, or those who cursed them in life.
The Misisi Beer Feast is usually held during the month called Twamo, which is around the same time as the month of October. Mukutanik, an adaptation of Misisi, is held at Christmas. In areas of Uganda where the millet ripens sooner, it is held earlier.

SOURCES:
FolkWrldHol-1999, p. 549